<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Little Miseries by icantwritegood</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29630202">Little Miseries</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/icantwritegood/pseuds/icantwritegood'>icantwritegood</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Polyamorous relationship, second half is abt a MURDER, set in a college in a fictional town called Redwel, some dark conversations but i'll put in content warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:00:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,274</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29630202</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/icantwritegood/pseuds/icantwritegood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate applies for an assistantship under the tempestuous professor of art history, Charles Tinsley. From the first day they are at each other's throats, and as Nate grows closer to Tinsley's wife, the professor of practical art, Fen, tensions mount between all three.</p><p>Meanwhile, a building site is brought to a halt when the remains of five bodies are found in the ground.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><em>“This bolt of light, / its only industry / to descend / and to be beautiful while it does so.”</em><br/>- Mary Oliver</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He suffered in silence. People liked it better that way, before and after. They had a morbid fondness for the tragic hero. And that was his purpose in the story; to suffer, and to die, and to look beautiful while doing so.</p><p>It happened in February, the onset of spring. He had been able to withstand the dark months precedent. His soul found its place among the dead leaves under the white ice. But he couldn’t stand the growing light. He couldn’t bear the thaw.</p><p>He went out on the moors, in a strange delirium, his head full of birdsong that echoed deep into the black woods of his mind. There was golden sunlight before him but he knew that if he turned around there would be thick rain clouds far above, creeping closer, bringing shadow over the land. Still he walked as if he could follow the patch of sunlight across earth and water alike.</p><p>His thoughts had never had such vast space to roam, but they were straying too far with no light and they rarely returned to him.</p><p>In a river in the woods of his mind there were two white swans. They floated with their necks curved to form a perfect heart. They would mate for life. He wanted to ask them how, but when he came close they hissed at him and threatened to break his bones with their wings.</p><p>In a cottage in Aberdeenshire, somewhere between Logie Coldstone and the River Dee, his life had come together, imploded, fell apart and started anew. He was reborn, not like a phoenix rising from the ashes or a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, but like a reanimated corpse pushing its hands through the wet crumbling soil and dragging itself from its grave, moaning, groaning, dead-eyed and loose-limbed.</p><p>He had travelled to the cottage on a desperate hunt for love, but this hunt had ended how all hunts end; in death and blood.</p><p>There was a lake near the cottage, roughly heart-shaped. It was not always there; it rose and fell with the rainfall. In winter it froze over. He would throw rocks into it to try and break the ice and see what lurked below. He would destroy in order to see life.</p><p>On that day he stood at the small frosted shore, his pockets full of stones. The air was so fresh he could have reached out and crinkled it like cellophane, the water so cold it felt solid against his legs.</p><p>He believed that if he died he would come back as something more beautiful – that was the lesson of the butterfly.</p><p>He slipped silently underwater. The coldness became his cocoon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i've shortened some chapter lengths because i thought the last ones were a bit too long. i was like a chef with a knife and an onion just chopchopchopchop</p><p>so anyway, i'm looking for feedback on characters, any typos i might have made (there might still be an accidental "me" or "my" in there somewhere), and also any suggestions for scenes you might want to see? (also any issues with pacing e.g. if u think one paragraph jumps to another too sharply)</p><p>thank you to the ppl who gave me feedback on the last one, it was invaluable !!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Redwel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fen and Tinsley were strange, both individually and as a couple, but they carried with them the confidence that made their strangeness enthralling. Nate was out of his depth from the moment he met them, having stepped into a puddle that hid the ocean beneath its surface. His time with them was obsessive and unpleasant, paradoxical in the way that he enjoyed his struggle to survive it. But such insanity always begins with the mundane of the every day.</p><p>It was a misty morning. He was cycling through streets he had never seen before, keeping the clocktower of the college in sight. His breath was harsh in his ears, his shirt was stuck to his back with sweat, his sides burned as he pushed the pedals faster and faster. Pigeons scattered before him in an explosion of grey feathered wings. His bike rattled worryingly as he took a sharp dip off a kerb. It wasn’t how he had pictured his first day. He had idealized it, romanticized it to within an inch of its life, as he did with most upcoming scenarios in his life. It was the only way he could bear the idea of his future at all.</p><p>The building that housed the art department was much more imposing than it had seemed yesterday; tall and Georgian, with rows of white-framed windows and a front door with a single white pillar either side to hold up the small porch roof. Thankfully, Nate had already scouted out this new territory in his life. He was a wary man, wary of life and its sly curveballs. If he hadn’t known where to go he probably would have just stayed in bed and accepted the fact that he had fucked up entirely.</p><p>The front door was propped open. It led into an entrance hall decorated like some grand townhouse. The stairs was a dark wood set against the far left corner, its newels twisted and its balustrades not straight but twirled in elaborate tendrils. There were a few dark couches along the other walls, a big Turkish rug covering the hardwood floor, fringed lamps which were always lit, and a wide gilt mirror hanging over a single dusty fireplace. There were taxidermied animals encased in glass cabinets; pheasants and rabbits and a single fox with its bushy tail wrapped around its black legs. They had glazed, zombified eyes that made Nate shiver.</p><p>He swung around the newel on the fourth floor, using the momentum to launch himself down the corridor. The only sounds were his hurried footsteps against the floorboards and his satchel banging against his hip (a brown leather satchel he had ‘borrowed’ from his father upon leaving home). Classes were in session through the frosted glass on each door, shapes moving back and forth, voices monotonous and muffled. Nate counted the room numbers under his breath as he went. </p><p>‘4D… 4E… 4F… 4G…’</p><p>There it was. Classroom 4H. He stood outside for a brief moment to let his heartbeat calm. He shrugged off his coat and unbuttoned his cotton shirt to show the black t-shirt underneath. Some dark curls had stuck to his forehead with sweat. He pushed them back into the wild mass atop his head.</p><p>He was only ten minutes late, but he was painfully aware that it was expected for tutors to appear early for class in order to discuss the lesson with the professor they were shadowing. He could only hope the class hadn’t properly started yet, or even better, that the professor himself was late too.</p><p>How cruel to wish on another the misfortune he was currently experiencing, but he wished it nonetheless.</p><p>He pushed down the handle of the door. It creaked loudly, <em>go back, go back.</em> The dozens of eyes at the dozens of desks fixed on him instantly, but only for a fleeting moment before they looked back to the top of the room. </p><p>The professor stared at Nate over the rims of black Gregory Peck glasses in an unimpressed silence, then made a show of turning in his chair, elbow resting on the back, to look up at the clock above the blackboard. He checked the watch on his wrist as if to make sure the time matched, brows raised. A silent condemnation. Nate gripped the strap of his satchel tightly.</p><p>‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, still hovering by the door. ‘The-’</p><p>‘Save it for later,’ said the professor in a surly Scottish accent, going back to the sheet of paper in front of him. He pressed his fingertips against his forehead to prop his head up. ‘And sit. I’ve just finished running through the textbooks needed for the class.’</p><p>Nate glanced at the rows of seats. The desk were rickety, old enough to still have spaces for ink pots in them, and the paint was peeling in narrow strips. Nate’s hand already itched to start picking it away. ‘Where should I sit?’</p><p>The professor raised his head from his hands with titanic effort before gesturing sharply at the room. ‘Anywhere. Just sit, for Christ’s sake.’</p><p>Nate stared at him for a moment, a little shocked at his attitude. ‘Alright.’</p><p>He sat at a free desk in the front row. The students either side of him gave him pitying looks. This was a bad sign; the professor’s current mood was relatively frequent.</p><p>He took out his notebook and pen, throwing a fleeting glance at the professor, who seemed disinterested with whatever was on the sheet of paper in front of him. The class sat in apprehensive silence.</p><p>After a moment he pushed the sheet aside and linked his hands together on the desk. There was a small golden ring on his wedding finger. Nate eyed it suspiciously.</p><p>‘Right, so this is meant to be an introductory class,’ said the professor, sitting back with one hand on the desk and one on his thigh, the picture of a man very confident and very in control of himself. ‘I feel as if I’ve done that already. Introductory classes are, inherently, a waste of time and energy, but for our latecomer here, I’ll run through it again. My name is Charles Tinsley, and I go by Professor. I specialize in the art of the Baroque and Renaissance eras, but this semester I will be teaching you the basic periods of art history. Any questions?’ He paused for half a second. ‘Good. On we go.’</p><p>He got to his feet. Nate was taken aback by his height. He was a big man, an easy six-foot-five, broad-shouldered and slim. He was wearing a waistcoat, a wine-coloured one with little detailed threading on it. Gold thread, the sort that scratched when you touched it.</p><p>He went ahead and picked up a piece of chalk from the small box on the desk, going to the board. ‘Why do we study art history?’ He scratched <em>Why Art History</em> onto the board and underlined it sharply. ‘What is it about the history of art that makes it important?’</p><p>No one spoke up. He stood with one hand on his hip, allowing the silence to drag out. He sighed, a sound that swiftly changed to a frustrated grumble. Such sounds punctuated his sentences often.<strike></strike></p><p>‘When I ask a question in this class, I expect an answer. I don’t care if it’s wrong or right. I only care that we engage as a group. If no one answers my questions, I am very happy to start choosing at random.’ A low chorus of objections. ‘Ah, none of you are too fond of that now, are you? So I’ll try again - why is the study of art history important?’</p><p>He raised the chalk to the board, but again, no one spoke up. He turned and gave the class a look of festering impatience, his lips pressed in a line. It was a look the students would have to grow well used to, and quickly.</p><p>A boy near the front raised a nervous hand. Tinsley cut him off before he even opened his mouth, despite having just said to engage. Tinsley was like that. He enjoyed tormenting people. Give him a fly and a set of tweezers and he would be happy for the afternoon.</p><p>‘No hand raising necessary,’ he said. ‘This isn’t school. Just speak.’</p><p>The boy quickly retracted his hand, hiding it under his desk with the other, as if Tinsley could come over at any moment and rap his knuckles. Which then again, he might have.</p><p>He stuttered something about art history telling modern historians what people were like. Tinsley dismissed this. A girl suggested that it was important to acknowledge the original creators of styles and techniques still in use today, such as Picasso and Matisse. Tinsley dismissed this too.</p><p>‘Picasso and Matisse. Very unique styles indeed. Very influential. Does the name Baya Mahieddine mean anything to you?’</p><p>The girl who had spoken shook her head.</p><p>‘Any of you?’</p><p>The class shook their heads.</p><p>‘Baya, as she was known in the art world, was sixteen when she became the focus of both Picasso and Matisse. They drew their inspiration from her. And what happened to her name?’ He waved his elegant fingers in the air like so many leaves being lost to the breeze. ‘Gone. Picasso and Matisse – and André Breton too, he was inspired by Baya, once writing an essay stating that “Baya is queen” – their names have lived on and on and on. The young Algerian woman who inspired them? None of you have even heard her name. Until now.’ He suddenly appeared quite serious, stopping at his desk to rest his hands lightly on it. ‘It’s important for you all to know now that I teach art history as it was. No sugar-coating. No dancing around uncomfortable subjects. So be prepared to have to study some unpleasant truths about your favourite artists, such as their plagiarism, their sexism, their racism. The harm they did to others for the sake of themselves. Artists may be idolized and solidified in precious metals nowadays, but they were just as human as you and I, and made many of the same mistakes we do.’ He straightened up again. ‘So, if art history doesn’t tell us about what people were like, if it lies to us about the biggest artists of our lifetimes, then what is it good for?’</p><p>Silence. Outside the window a robin alighted on a branch and sang to defend its territory, its red feathered chest puffed and proud. Someone passed by in the corridor, a blurred shape through the frosted glass. Tinsley eventually turned back to the board and wrote in capital letters, NOTHING. </p><p>He placed the chalk aside, dusting off his hands as he faced the class again. A sea of baffled faces looked back.</p><p>Tinsley moved to his desk, half-sitting on the side of it, one foot still on the floor. He had a commanding presence, easily holding the attention of the room. Perhaps it was due to his height and stature, perhaps it was due to the way he rarely stopped moving as he talked, gesturing freely and pacing back and forth, speaking quietly as he moved through the desks so that people had to lean towards him to hear him. </p><p>‘Art history is not important,’ said Tinsley. ‘If all art historians vanished off the face of the earth, the world would not be any worse for wear. At the end of the day, we don’t study art history for others. The draw towards art history is entirely personal. Entirely private. We are all sitting here and we all have various different reasons as to why, but one thing that’s for certain is that all those reasons are personal, private, and most definitely pretentious.’</p><p>This got a round of smiles and stifled laughs. Tinsley spread his hands, fingers splayed.</p><p><em>Pianist fingers, </em>thought Nate, <em>They could easily span an octave.</em></p><p>‘It’s true,’ said Tinsley. ‘The study of art history requires both dedication and a healthy dollop of pretentiousness on the side. So there’s two things I’m certain of about all of you; firstly, you’re pretentious, secondly, you’re brave. A subject like art history will release you into a very narrow, highly competitive field. So if you're not willing to break your back for the study of this subject, then I’d advise you to change courses, because I will be demanding a high amount of work to be done. A lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of analyses and late nights and early mornings. And more than that, I will not be going easy on you if you decide to continue this course while having no interest. I will fail you at the drop of a hat, regardless of any sob stories. And I’m a man of my word, so I mean that seriously.’ He took a breath, shoulders rising and falling sharply. ‘Right. Any questions?’</p><p>The typical question arose. ‘How will we be assessed?’</p><p>‘Continuous assessment for fifty percent. A final written exam for forty percent. A presentation for ten percent. Yes, I know we all hate presentations, but it’ll be a relatively easy ten percent, so I’d advise you suck it up. But for most questions, you can come to..?’</p><p>It took Nate a moment before he realized that Tinsley was looking at him expectantly. He got to his feet, knocking the desk slightly as he did so. He smoothed his shirt and introduced himself to the class; his name (Nathaniel Moreno), his studies (Art History), the one paper he had written on art and its impact on the psyche <em>(Apollo and Psyche, </em>he had called it, referring to Apollo’s position as the god of the arts). He kept it short and sweet.</p><p>Tinsley was watching him with his head tilted back a tad and an eyebrow arched. Disdainful. Nate sat with the odd feeling of having somehow disappointed him.</p><p>The class was dismissed and the students began to file out. The usual ones left first – those who were studious and wanted to get a good seat at the library, those who were lonely and had no reason to hang around, those who were hungry, and those who were dying to get to the bathroom before the crowds converged. </p><p>Tinsley stood at his desk, flicking through the pages of a textbook as the last students left. Nate sat and waited for something to happen. </p><p>After a few minutes Tinsley looked up sharply, as if he had forgotten Nate was even there. He came over. Nate stood up. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Tinsley. He seemed awfully aloof, awfully distant. He was bigger up close, intimidatingly tall, and it didn’t help that Nate had never exactly made it to six foot. </p><p>When he extended his hand, Nate shook it. For a moment, with that unblinking stare on Nate’s and that large hand around his fingers, he felt as if Tinsley owned him.</p><p> ‘Well,’ said Tinsley. ‘Thoughts?’</p><p>Nate shrugged, trying to appear equally aloof and cool. ‘Different to what I’ve seen before.’</p><p>‘And you wanted more of the same?’</p><p>Nate’s big dark eyes searched Tinsley’s face urgently in order to find an explanation for his tone. ‘That’s not what I meant.’</p><p>Tinsley suddenly smiled, although the sincerity of this smile wasn’t exactly convincing. ‘Good. Then you’ve come to the right place.’</p><p>The smile dropped and he turned away. He began to gather his things off his desk, so Nate started doing the same. For a few minutes this rustling of paper and rattling of pens was the only sound.</p><p>Nate wracked his brains for a neutral start to a conversation. He hadn’t expected the responsibility to fall on him so singularly, but there were no other tutors in sight. He almost hoped they had missed the first class entirely. At least then there would have been someone worse than him.</p><p>‘Why did you think it was different?’ asked Tinsley, casual yet still sudden enough to catch Nate off-guard. Such was his way.</p><p>‘It just, uh, most of the time I think the professor tries to encourage and inspire their students. Not… the opposite.’</p><p>Tinsley didn’t respond. When Nate turned to look at him he was looking right back, an unimpressed eyebrow raised. He had a very sharp face. Sharp eyebrows, a sharp, pointed nose. Sharp eyes, most of all; a light hazel, surrounded by a feathery fringe of eyelashes. Surprisingly feminine in his otherwise rugged face.</p><p>‘The opposite?’</p><p>Nate was well aware of his hamartia; the tendency he had of blurting out the first response that comes into his head had landed him in hot water many a time. He was, however, quite capable of laughing his way out of such blunders. He could joke and smile and the other person would generally let it slide. But it didn’t seem that this was going to be possible this time; the silence had yet to be broken by either of them, and Nate was unable to muster a single word as he stood over the hole he had just dug with the shovel still in his mucky hands.</p><p>Tinsley turned back to his desk, closing over his textbook, pressing his hand down on the cover. ‘I’d like for you to elaborate on what “the opposite” means, exactly.’</p><p><em>Well fuck</em>. ‘Well… I meant-’</p><p><em>‘Dis</em>couraging? <em>Un</em>inspiring?’</p><p>‘Well if you’d let me finish,’ said Nate, a tad forcefully. That was how to interact with Tinsley; if you didn’t lock horns with him, he might not even notice you were speaking to him.</p><p>‘Oh, by all means,’ he replied, turning to face him with a vague wave of a hand. ‘The floor is yours, Mr Moreno.’</p><p>Nate’s hands fidgeted at his sides for a moment. ‘I meant that the things you said today are more likely to make a student drop this class than pursue their interest in it. Saying that art history is meaningless and that you’ll fail them without hesitation isn’t exactly going to grab their interest. That’s what I meant.’</p><p>‘Astute. Tell me again, how long have you been a professor for?’</p><p>‘I’m not a professor,’ said Nate through his teeth.</p><p>Tinsley gave him a tight smile as if to say, <em>exactly.</em> Then he picked up the duster off the desk and started wiping the few words he had written off the board. Nate took a deep, quiet breath before looking around the room to confirm its emptiness in his head.</p><p>‘Where are the other tutors?’</p><p>‘There are no others.’</p><p>‘But the other professors have more than one.’</p><p>Tinsley finished wiping the board and dumped the duster back on his desk. The chalk dust billowed from it to settle on the dark wood like snow on damp tarmac. ‘I only wanted one.’</p><p>‘I’ll take from that you didn’t want any, then.’</p><p>Tinsley stood by his desk, tapping a knuckle off the surface in a slow steady rhythm as he studied Nate in an insultingly evaluative manner. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if one was one too many.’</p><p>Nate bit back his own acidic comment, swallowing it down. He had made a recent promise to himself not to let people walk all over him, and from what he had witnessed so far, Tinsley would walk all over him and fashion him into a rug for his office once he got flat enough.</p><p> ‘Look,’ he said, raising his hands in a cooling motion between them, ‘I obviously need this to go well. I want to teach what you teach. And in order to do that, I need this experience.’</p><p>‘Please don’t talk down to me about my own job, Mr Moreno. Do you think I just woke up one day in this position?’</p><p>‘You’re acting like it, yeah.’</p><p>Tinsley arched an eyebrow. He was waiting for a panicked apology, but it wasn’t going to come. Nate just picked up his satchel, hauling it back into place over his right shoulder.</p><p>Tinsley sighed in exasperation, turning to his desk and picking up his empty coffee cup.</p><p>‘Listen, Nathaniel – it’s Nathaniel, isn’t it?’ Nate said no, that he went by Nate instead, but Tinsley either didn’t hear him or, more likely, he decided to purposely irritate him. ‘I too had to go through what you’re doing now. Every professor in this building did. And do you know what would do you more harm than good? Babying you every step of the way.’</p><p>‘I’m not asking to be babied.’</p><p>‘Then what’s the issue here?’ he said, all haughty arrogance.</p><p>‘All I’m asking is for you not to be so- so rude. That’s all.’</p><p>‘Rude?’ His voice was suddenly low and blatantly unfriendly. ‘I’ll tell you what’s rude; turning up to your first class late. Not only is it rude, but it’s also incredibly disrespectful. I run a very busy schedule, Nathaniel, and what you need to do is step up to the mark.’</p><p>The colour rose to Nate’s face, pooling hotly in his cheeks. ‘My bus didn’t-’</p><p>‘Not. Interested.’ Tinsley’s eyes waver in their intensity. Nate had always thought brown eyes were warm and welcoming, but he had never seen a pair as cold and impenetrable as the ones looking at him right now. ‘If you’re late again, we’re going to have a problem. Clear?’</p><p>The unfairness of the situation made Nate’s skin crawl. He watched the air beside Tinsley’s arm, jaw clenched.</p><p>Tinsley’s voice was dangerously cool. ‘I said, are we clear.’</p><p>‘...Crystal.’</p><p>‘Fantastic.’</p><p>Nate remained staring into the air as Tinsley’s footsteps exited the room and receded down the corridor. Then he slumped down into a chair, burying his face in his hands. How had he managed to make an enemy out of the one person who mattered in this college? If he could have found the bus driver who had been late he would have killed him, although he had a feeling that Tinsley’s attitude would have been no different even if he had been a whole hour early.</p><p>When Nate lifted his head from his hands his eyes were watery with frustration. He cried easily, always had, always would, but he wiped his eyes determinedly with the back of his hands, sniffing. He would not have tears in his eyes for when Tinsley got back. If he was going to cry, he would do so later, in the comfort of his bedroom.</p><p>Tinsley had left all his things on his desk to come back for. Nate understood that he was also something Tinsley had left to come back for, like a dog leashed to a post outside a shop. He gritted his teeth, swallowed his anger, stayed in his seat. A series of actions he would have to get very practiced at.</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>That night Nate went to the Townland for the first time. He wasn’t the type of man to drown his sorrows, but he didn’t see anything wrong with letting them go for a quick swim.</p><p>The pub was a large and cosy establishment, with lots of wood beams and embroidered furniture and multiple fireplaces in the stone walls. It was run by James Kemble, a tall Welshman in his early sixties. Both regulars and newcomers to the pub referred to him as ‘the Mayor’ due to his owning of ‘the Townland’. Nate knew his nickname long before he knew his real name, which was surprising, seeing as he was as chatty as they came.</p><p>Nate liked the pub the second he stepped into it, and he liked the Mayor the second he came down the bar to him and said, ‘What can I do you for?’</p><p>Nate ordered a cider before taking a seat in a booth in the corner. He wasn’t afraid of being seen alone. He had spent a large portion of his life in a self-imposed solitary confinement. There had been some sporadic friendships, but he didn’t know if they gotten bored of him or if he had gotten bored of them. Either way, he let communication slip through his fingers each time without much remorse.</p><p>The Mayor brought the pint over, along with a foam coaster to catch the dribbling condensation.</p><p>‘You’re new here,’ he stated as he set Nate’s glass down.</p><p>‘Fresh off the boat.’</p><p>‘Any particular reason, or just curiosity?’</p><p>‘I got a job in the college,’ he replied around the cigarette he was lighting. He waved the match out, placing the blackened stick in the ashtray. ‘Why are you laughing? Did I say something?’</p><p>‘No, not at all. You just must be the first person under thirty to have voluntarily come here in years! More often the young ones leave for the bigger cities. There’s been a few lads who’ve gone “missing” from Redwel, although it’s a bit of a stretch to call them “missing”. Most likely they got bored beyond words and ran away from this town where nothing ever happens.’</p><p>Nate shrugged. ‘I like the quiet.’</p><p>‘And why do you like the quiet?’</p><p>‘No reason. I just do.’</p><p>‘You can’t lie to a publican, young man. I’ve heard more lies and truths than you could imagine. And I know for certain that people who love quiet tend to have had too much noise in their lives. And those who love noise have had too much quiet. In the same way that people in hot climates want nothing more than snow and people in cold climates would like to one day feel the sun on their back.’</p><p>Nate studied his old face, his wild white hair and his startling blue eyes, clear as a summer stream. ‘You have a nice way with words.’</p><p>‘Oh, I dabble in writing from time to time,’ he said, sitting down now. He linked his mottled hands on the table. ‘Poetry, mainly. It’s difficult to stop and start the flow of words, so sometimes I find myself talking a tad flowery. But everyone has their all-consuming hobby, don’t they?’</p><p>‘Yes. They do.’ Nate tapped his cigarette into the glass ashtray in the centre of the table. ‘When was the last time someone went “missing”?’</p><p>The Mayor thought about it. ‘Some time last spring, I believe.’</p><p>‘And no one bats an eye?’</p><p>‘Well, there’s very little to say there was anything sinister involved. The police investigate, they find it odd that the lad left his belongings behind, they’re inclined towards kidnap, but then... nothing. The search ends. They’re stumped. It doesn’t help that the men tend to be a bit reclusive in their lifestyles either. God, I’m an awful gossip.’</p><p>The concern in Nate’s chest did a little flip. ‘What age group were these men usually in?’</p><p>The Mayor laughed. ‘I don’t think you need to worry. They were in their late thirties, maybe. Early forties.’ He raised an ash-coloured eyebrow. ‘Are you a bit of a recluse, then? All you academics are a little bit. Academia should be an illness, I think. It’s obsessive. You live your lives in it.’</p><p>‘It’s definitely a calling.’</p><p>‘I know all about callings,’ said the Mayor, looking over his shoulder where a woman was waiting at the bar and staring at him without blinking. ‘I’m getting one right now, I think. Enjoy your pint.’</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. That Doth Mock The Meat It Feeds on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nate’s second day was just as gut-wrenchingly infuriating as his first day had been. He woke early. He wasn’t used to the low, constant sound of traffic outside, the whirring of cars, the occasional roar of a truck and the rattle of its contents. He sat up and buried his face in his hands, raking his fingers back through his hair, cursing as he pulled at the knots that had formed during the night. He must have tossed and turned quite a lot.</p><p>He looked at the clock, reaching over to turn its white face towards the weak light from the window. It was six. A whole hour before his alarm would go off. Typically he would grab this hour with both hands and dive right back under the covers, but he felt unsettled by the day ahead, especially seeing how badly the day before had been.</p><p>He had come to the conclusion that Tinsley had been unnecessarily hard on him. It was a conclusion he had swiftly come to, but he was certain of it now after sleeping on it. His mother had always said to have a full night’s sleep before deciding on anything drastic. That was the last thing she had said to him before he left, sitting on the side of his bed, brushing his hair back from his forehead.</p><p><em>Sleep on it, </em>she whispered. <em>Decide in the morning. And if you still want to go, then I can find comfort in the fact that you were certain of yourself, and I will love you still.</em></p><p>Nate sat for a few minutes, duvet bundled around his waist, hands in his lap. The air in the room was cold against his back. The courage to get out of his warm bed was slipping away.</p><p>A thick knit jumper was the first thing he laid his hands on, one from an ex he no longer talked to, and he pulled it on quickly to stop the cold air from reaching his bones. The sleeves were too long, stretched and threadbare from years of wear, but the collar didn’t scratch his neck and the wool was cosy and it never let him down on a cold autumn morning such as this one.</p><p>He padded out into the kitchen, the tiled floor chilly against the soles of his feet. The room was dim, the sky outside still a twilight purple, the moon a deft slice in the dark. He left the light off. The shadows were soft and gentle, and for now he didn’t mind their company.</p><p>He filled the kettle and set it on the stovetop before crossing the small room to the balcony. It wasn’t a particularly fancy place, but he was grateful to have been given a top floor apartment. The neighbours were kind; there were another few tutors in the building, an elderly couple, and the landlady who occasionally stayed in the basement flat. There was space to store his bike and reliable locks on all the doors. Even the location was better than he had expected; down the road there was a quiet coffee shop and at the opposite end of the street there was an independent bookshop with beautiful copies of the classics, bound in patterned cloth with their titles stitched in jewel tones. <em>Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, Little Women. </em>He hadn’t managed to fit many books into his luggage when he left Madrid. Perhaps he could save up and invest in some prettier, more precious replacements.</p><p>The kettle was whistling. He placed two spoons of coffee into a mug, along with two spoons of sugar. His mother’s voice, <em>Do you like coffee, or do you just like sugar?</em></p><p>He opened the fridge and cursed. He had forgotten to get milk the night before, having been too frazzled by Tinsley’s earlier attitude. He let out a harsh breath through his teeth and poured in the last few dribbles from the carton anyway. They dissipated in puffs of white smoke.</p><p>He found his coat, fishing his cigarettes from the pocket.</p><p>The morning air was cold against his bare legs, but he sat and shivered and drank his coffee and smoked his cigarette. His alarm clock jumped to life inside. Within minutes, lights started blinking in the windows in front of him, as far as he could see, giving the stars their own night sky to gaze upon.</p><p>He recalled one night in Madrid, awakening to a loud crashing sound on the street outside. A car fleeing from police had gone directly into a wall. The apartment blocks around him had blinked to life, one window at a time, silhouettes appearing in windows and on balconies.</p><p><em>Hello! </em>he had wanted to shout. <em>Hello everyone!</em></p><p>But he was too young and his voice too quiet, and he was scared no one would answer.</p><p>Due to the fact he was already up and awake, he had a quick shower. There wasn’t much hot water, but it remained lukewarm for a sufficient amount of time. When he turned it off he was surprised to hear the phone trilling in the hallway. There couldn’t be many people who had his new number, so he instantly ruled out his few friends. This made the ringing phone incredibly discomforting.</p><p>He scrambled out of the shower, wrapping his towel around himself as he hurried to answer the phone. He pushed his wet hair back from his face to prevent it from touching the receiver, holding his head at an awkward angle. ‘Hello?’</p><p>‘Where are you?’</p><p>It was Tinsley. Nate’s heart dropped at the impatience clear in his voice. ‘What do you mean?’</p><p>The reply was dry and robotic. ‘Classes start at nine. You are meant to be here at half seven. It is currently half seven. You are still at home. Do you see the problem?’</p><p>‘I- You didn’t tell me I had to be in at half seven!’</p><p>There was a terrible silence. He could create the most terrifying silences Nate had ever been the victim of.</p><p>Then he said, with incredulous anger, ‘Get here now!’</p><p>The line went dead. Nate cursed loudly at the receiver, strangling it for a brief moment, before shoving it back on the hook and bolting to his room to get changed. </p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>He was out of breath when he got to the college, his face hot and sweaty, his shirt half-tucked and his shirtsleeves half-rolled. Tinsley, seated at his desk, gave him a lingering once-over before going back to his newspaper.</p><p>‘Your hair is wet.’</p><p>‘Oh? Is it?’</p><p>Tinsley looked back up at his sharp tone. ‘Sorry if I disrupted your peaceful morning by reminding you that you have a job.’ He looked back down at his newspaper. He read the papers religiously, buying a large flimsy broadsheet at least twice a day. ‘Sit.’</p><p>Nate hovered for a moment before taking a deep, calming breath and sitting down. Tinsley didn’t speak to him, instead snapping the newspaper up to cut away his presence from his eye-line.</p><p>Nate looked around the office instead. It was as if a gust of wind had just made its ferocious way through the room only seconds beforehand.</p><p>To the left there was a fireplace with no fire, and books were stacked haphazardly on the mantelpiece. A bookcase was set against the wall to the right of the fireplace, also loaded with books, some vertical, some shoved in horizontally on top of the vertical. In the right hand corner of the room there was an unused door which looked like it would crumble on the spot if the handle was tried.</p><p>The desk that Tinsley sat at was dark and heavy, and Nate was sitting on one of the two worn leather chairs available to visitors. The second chair was being used as a pedestal for even more books. Nate tilted his head slightly in order to make out the titles; <em>Painting and Experience in 15<sup>th</sup> Century Italy, Art &amp; Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking.</em> There were one or two more intimate works, such as <em>Ever Yours: The Essential Letters</em>, and<em> The Diary of Frida Kahlo; An Intimate Self-Portrait. </em>He wanted to reach over and leaf through them, but he had a feeling Tinsley would react to that in the same way a feral cat would react to a person trying to touch their new-born kittens (hissing, spitting, and scratching included).</p><p>On the desk there was an unlit oil lamp along with loose papers, some scattered, some tied into groups with twine. Empty coffee cups were visible far and wide, gleaming white ceramic in the early morning sun. Inside them were the gritty dregs of coffee. The glass ashtray was nearly overflowing.</p><p>There were some diamonds among the coal, however. There was a Ronson table lighter that Tinsley swore had been passed down his family line since they had stolen it from an aristocratic family in the 1930s, and his treasured letter opener he kept in a jar with his pens; it was a brass one with the handle modelled as a satyr. But even they were occasionally lost among the mess.</p><p>The room needed a clean, that much was obvious, although Nate entirely understood if the cleaners were reluctant to come within ten feet of Tinsley’s Lair.</p><p>Tinsley placed the newspaper aside and began writing in a diary, under today’s date. For a few minutes the only sound was the scratching of a pen nib against paper. Nate watched the way he wrote. Of course he had to have the perfectly untidy scrawl of a scholar, slanted and looping along the lines.</p><p>‘You will be here half an hour before every class,’ said Tinsley, head still lowered, pen still scratching. ‘At least half an hour. Is that clear?’</p><p>‘Yes.’ Nate raised an eyebrow at him. ‘How early do you come in in the mornings?’</p><p>A shrug of broad shoulders. ‘Around half six. I don’t sleep very well. At all. Ever.’ He pushed a full stop into the paper and placed his pen aside, leaving the ink to dry. ‘And the fun news is, when you’re here you go by my schedule. So I’d suggest you start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier too.’</p><p>‘Sounds reasonable.’</p><p>Tinsley leaned back, hands linked around the back of his head as he studied Nate’s face with narrowed eyes. Then he placed his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. Once again, Nate was taken aback at his height. He stood up too, if only not to feel so small. It didn’t make much of a difference.</p><p>Tinsley didn’t notice, occupied with gathering up his things for class. There was a gold photo frame on the desk. Nate subtly leaned forwards to see what was in it, expecting a photo of perhaps his wife, or perhaps both him and his wife, but it was only a picture of a cat. A grey one, with odd green-yellow eyes. It was sprawled on top of a stack of records in a box.</p><p>‘You have a cat?’ asked Nate, relying on this seemingly innocent question to insert some level of casual chat into their conversations.</p><p>Tinsley paused, a hand in his pocket where he was tucking away some pens. ‘I did.’</p><p><em>For fuck’s sake. </em>‘Oh. Sorry.’</p><p>‘Mm.’ He picked up a large black folder crammed with notes, tucking it under his arm. ‘Have you ever had any pets, Nathaniel?’</p><p>‘Two dogs. Daisy and Delilah. They’re still with my parents.’</p><p>‘What kind?’</p><p>‘Rottweilers.’</p><p>‘Odd choice.’</p><p>‘Why? I know people assume they’re vicious, but they’re not. They weren’t raised as guard dogs.’</p><p>‘It’s in their genes, regardless of how they’re raised.’</p><p>‘That’s just not true,’ said Nate. He was unsure as to why he was taking the accusation so personally. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad owner.’</p><p>‘Mm. If you say so.’</p><p>‘Well cats can be vicious too. They turn on you with no warning.’</p><p>‘They give warnings, Nathaniel.’ He had circled the desk now, still watching Nate coolly. ‘And they have boundaries, just like people. Don’t cross those boundaries and they won’t scratch. Pretty simple.’</p><p>The metaphor didn’t go over Nate’s head. He fought the urge to roll his eyes, instead just staying quiet, unwilling to fuel this nonsense debate even though it pained him to let it go. He changed the subject.</p><p>‘I haven’t been assigned an office yet. I need one.’</p><p>Tinsley looked at him as if the sentence was highly contentious. Then he dumped the things he had picked up back onto his desk, threw Nate one last venomous glare, and crossed the room to the unused door in the corner.</p><p>It was blocked by even more books. He leaned down to move them aside, cursing as one stack tilted and tilted and finally toppled to the dusty wooden floor with a loud clatter. He left them there, taking hold of the doorknob. He twisted it. He twisted it again. He rammed his shoulder against the door and suddenly it gave. The hinges wailed, echoing Nate’s internal monologue.</p><p>‘You’ll be in here,’ said Tinsley, still looking into the office. Dust motes swirled out of the doorway and floated through the sunlight only to disappear into shadow again.</p><p>‘Door seems a bit tricky,’ commented Nate.</p><p>‘Mm. A little.’</p><p>‘Best to leave it open, maybe?’</p><p>‘No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.’ Tinsley dusted off his hands as he went back to his own desk. ‘You can make yourself at home later, Nathaniel.’</p><p>Nate went to the door anyway, ignoring Tinsley’s impatient sigh.</p><p>The office was a horror. It was relatively big, but that was the only good thing about it. Other than that, there were a few broken chairs in the corner, bookshelves that were clearly serving as some sort of arachnid apartment block (with a few dead crusting wasps for good measure), and a desk covered in a layer of dust as thick as the earth’s crust. Nate slowly looked over his shoulder at Tinsley, who tilted his head aside as if to say, <em>What now?</em></p><p>‘It’s…’ He looked back into the office. ‘I can’t really be expected to work in here.’</p><p>‘I expect nothing less.’</p><p>Nate held his gaze, teeth clenched.</p><p><em>What is it? </em>he thought. <em>Why don’t you like me?</em></p><p>But Tinsley was most likely awaiting such a question with a few sharp words on the tip of his razor tongue, and Nate was not going to give him the satisfaction.</p><p>Tinsley left and Nate followed, scooping up his satchel from the floor as he went. He ran a hand through his still-damp hair and gave it a shake. He knew it must have looked like a bird’s nest, but he supposed the students would forgive him that much.</p><p>Only after class did Tinsley turn to him and say, ‘Your fly is open, by the way.’</p><p>Nate glanced down before quickly zipping it back up. ‘Oh for crying out loud. Couldn’t have told me earlier?’</p><p>The corners of Tinsley’s mouth turned down into an altogether ponderous expression. ‘Hm. No.’</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>Nate knew from the start that Tinsley wasn’t his biggest fan. He became very much familiar with Scottish insults, so many variations on the word ‘idiot’, such as ‘walloper’, or ‘bampot’. One phrase Tinsley threw at him with abandon was ‘you’re talking mince’, which Nate assumed didn’t mean he was talking so intelligibly, and was more along the lines of ‘talking nonsense’.</p><p>‘You fucking dobber,’ Tinsley would say, standing in the doorway to Nate’s office with a bunch of test papers Nate had corrected the day before. ‘Did you do these with a blindfold on?’</p><p>Nate was usually so caught up in trying to understand exactly what he had just been called that he could only stare in silence as Tinsley crossed the room and dumped the papers down on his desk with a flat, ‘Do these again. Properly this time, or so help me God.’</p><p>Then he was off again, back into his office with those clipped footsteps. That was the furthest their conversations went in those early days. Tinsley seemed reluctant to talk to him (beyond frequent little insults) or to even acknowledge his presence (beyond sidelong glares). Nate was certain that he could have done a handstand in the middle of the office and Tinsley wouldn’t have blinked an eye.</p><p>Nate wasn’t sure if it was his narcissism or his basic observation speaking, but he believed Tinsley was jealous of him.</p><p>Tinsley was a handsome man. He had great hair, thick and full, a sandy brown that was fading to grey at his temples like an old Hollywood detective. He wasn’t the type to style it, and the juxtaposition between his neat clothing and the wild flyaways of his hair was charming, despite the man they were on. He ran a hand through it often, pushing it back off his face with a sigh of exasperation, or frustration, or most commonly impatience. He could get impatient with anything; if a student gave a single wrong answer in class, if the kettle didn’t boil in ten seconds, if the leaves didn’t change fast enough on the trees. A sharp exhale through his nose, a rapid tapping of his fingers against a desk, the clipped sound of his burnished Balmorals against the floor as he stalked the corridors of the art department. He would have clapped his hands at a gale force wind and told it to hurry up if he got the chance. He should have driven people away in droves, but they often seemed drawn to him, intrigued by him. He had that dark, brooding edge that many women seemed to find irresistible.</p><p>He had good skin and looked younger than he was. He didn’t eat a lot of sugary food and never had. Not that he made the conscious decision to avoid it or omit it from his diet. He simply didn’t experience the cravings for sweets or packets of crisps that others did. He could, however, develop the occasional want for a bowl of ice cream. Unfortunately he often forgot about these bowls, and by the time he remembered he had one it was nothing but a warm vanilla soup congealing around the edges.</p><p>Fen, the practical art professor, lightly touched Nate’s arm, her breath against his ear.</p><p>‘You should leave it on his desk,’ she said, nodding at the latest bowl. There was a smile in her voice. ‘Wouldn’t that be funny?</p><p>Nate doubted he would find it funny at all, and expressed the sentiment. She rolled her eyes.</p><p>‘He’s not <em>that </em>antsy. It’s fine. It’ll be funny.’</p><p>So in order to make her laugh, Nate did it. Nate liked Fen. He appreciated her from a distance. He knew she was married, and although he wasn’t interested in women, he knew women could be interested in him, and he didn’t want to cause ructions anywhere.</p><p>Later Nate found Tinsley scrubbing the bowl, the sudsy water clinging to the hairs on his arms and flattening them slick against his skin. He looked at Nate, right at his eyes. He always looked right at his eyes. There wasn’t another pair of eyes like them; they were as black as the sun was bright.</p><p>‘People are getting a bit too fond of you around here,’ he said, placing the bowl in the drainer. ‘You and your wily ways.’</p><p>‘Your eyes are getting a bit green there.’ Nate tapped the side of his head as he turned away. ‘Oh beware my lord of jealousy.’</p><p>
  <em>It is the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on. Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend me from jealousy!’</em>
</p><p>Tinsley let him go. He wouldn’t admit it – he wouldn’t even confess it on the rack – but he <em>was</em> jealous of Nate. At forty years of age he was jealous of this newcomer who was constantly in his space and speaking in his ear. Nate was new and fresh and he smiled and laughed and Tinsley watched the affection rain down on him like an old cat watching a new puppy being brought into the house; bitter, resentful, and somewhat malicious.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. "When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The air in the office was stuffy. There was a tree outside, its foliage at the same level as the window. It was positively swarming with wasps. The longer Nate looked, the more he could see; they crawled all over the leaves, wings glistening like wet gemstones.</p><p>‘The problem is less that you can’t move, and more that Tinsley can’t afford to let you go.’ The Dean of the art department a damp, mildewing man with flat mousy hair and a red nose that hinted at a fondness for drink; whiskey, or brandy, or something equally overwhelming and pungent. ‘It’s been a few years since he’s successfully finished an assistantship, and we do require that professors train in tutors. Most have to do at least one every academic year. Tinsley has been fighting tooth and nail to be exempted, but to no avail. He has already come to me to say he doesn’t want a tutor and that you will only get in the way.’</p><p>‘He thinks I smile too much,’ said Nate flatly. ‘I know. I’ve heard it all.’</p><p>‘But he must maintain a tutor,’ said the Dean. ‘So he has you, or he has nothing.’</p><p>Nate sat in unimpressed silence. Being a tutor for Tinsley seemed to be a bad deal for everybody involved.</p><p>The Dean continued. ‘I know Tinsley is an acquired taste-’</p><p>‘He’s not an “acquired taste”. He’s an unpleasant person.’ Nate closed his eyes to cool down before continuing more calmly. ‘I’m sorry for being rash, but I won’t be disrespected by anyone. I don’t think that’s to be frowned upon.’</p><p>‘I suppose I don’t think so either.’ The Dean tapped his thick fingers against each other. ‘I think I know something that could help you out. Something somewhat devious, but I’m sure you’ll understand. Tinsley is intimidating to <em>all </em>of us, you see.’</p><p>Nate leaned forwards, intrigued by this confidentiality.</p><p>‘Tinsley’s wife, Fen, is the practical art professor here. She’s looking for an extra model, seeing as her main one has scheduling issues at the moment. It would only be Tuesdays and Thursdays, I believe she said. In the evening. More importantly, she’s much friendlier than her husband. Tinsley might ease off if Fen comes to like you, and she most likely will. And on top of that, it puts a few extra pounds in your pocket.’</p><p>Nate struggled to hide his surprise at the fact Fen and Tinsley were married. He never would have guessed it, and even now he was still somewhat doubtful. They didn’t suit each other. He was dark and menacing. He didn’t like anyone, and he wasn’t too widely liked in return. Words associated with him were overwhelmingly negative, such as cold, aloof, distant, stand-offish, and so on and so forth. Fen, however, was as bright as a summer sky, with a touch as warm and refreshing as one too.</p><p><em>A real Hades and Persephone,</em> Nate thought.</p><p>‘What kind of modelling?’</p><p>‘Life modelling, I expect. Not full nudity, she’ll leave that to her main model when he’s in.’</p><p>Nate rested his head in his hand for a moment. He almost wanted to point out how pathetic it was that the Dean was too nervous to talk to one of his own employees about their actions, but he had already made one enemy at the college, so he held his tongue and tried to let out his breath in a manner that wasn’t a sigh.</p><p>‘That sounds great. Where do I contact her?’</p><p>The Dean gave him Fen’s class number, and he hurried off to catch her before the hour was up.</p><p>The art room was in the basement, accessible via a rattling metal staircase with flaking paint. He saw her through the square window in the door; she was wearing a cream-coloured thick knit jumper over a long wispy floral dress, and her dark hair was held at the back of her head in an elaborate silver clasp. Some loose strands fell about her face. He tried to imagine her holding hands with the dour Tinsley. It was impossible.</p><p>The students were at separate desks sketching out the still life arrangements in front of them, and she was floating from one to the other, leaning down to point out an accidental flaw or to offer a helpful word. When Nate closed the door she looked over. She raised her eyebrows, not in the disdainful manner her husband did, but with genuine interest.</p><p>When she came over Nate explained why he was there. She immediately seemed delighted.</p><p>‘That’d be amazing! It’s after last class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Do you mind stepping into the light a little bit?’</p><p>She stepped back towards the window and he stepped forwards. The slanted evening sunlight hit his eyes, and he was forced to squint somewhat, the gold rays bleary through his lashes. She studied his face, gently turning it from side to side. Her gaze was detached and observant, in the way artists are about their subjects. Nate wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.</p><p>‘Great bone structure,’ she commented, as if to some critic beside her. ‘Perfect, really.’ She stepped back and clapped her hands once. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re perfect. How does it feel to be blessed with such facial symmetry, hm?’</p><p>‘Feels good.’</p><p>‘I’d say so. Come with me for a minute.’ She led him into the small office, leaving the door open to the main class. ‘Are you okay with partial nudity? Nothing super inappropriate, just maybe the torso and legs. The modelling is for a Renaissance class, and you know how they all are in those paintings – draping cloth, bare skin, ethereal, innocent. Yeah?’</p><p>‘That’s me. Ethereal and innocent.’</p><p>She smiled; her earrings caught the light, sapphires on dangling silver, and Nate wondered for a brief moment if it was Tinsley who had bought them for her. ‘Great. It’d be between six and seven. If you can get here a little early just so we can get set up before the students arrive, that’d be fab.’</p><p>‘I can try, for sure.’</p><p>She looked at him again for a second. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking – believe me, I know the feeling of people jumping to assume where you’re from – but do you have roots in mainland Europe by any chance? Italy?’</p><p>‘My mum is Spanish. My dad’s English.’</p><p>‘Ah, I thought as much. You have the perfect look for the class-‘ She gestured at her own face; the wedding and engagement rings on her hand gleam among all the others, the former plain gold and the latter intricately carved. ‘-with the hair and the eyes and everything. I hope that doesn’t sound too weird. I’m just relieved I found a good model at the last minute.’</p><p>‘I’m glad I can help. I’m not really shy or anything, so I’ll be fine I think.’</p><p>‘Perfect.’ She took a hold of his hand in both of hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘See you tomorrow after last class then!’ She let go of his hand in surprise. ‘Oh my God, I just realized I didn’t get your name. I’m so sorry.’</p><p>Nate laughed at the flush that shot to her face. How could someone as upbeat and kind as her be in any way attracted to Tinsley? ‘It’s nothing, honestly. My name is Nate Moreno. I didn’t really get your name either.’</p><p>‘It’s Fen Chou.’ She led the way back out into the classroom, throwing him an apologetic look. ‘Unfortunately, Nate, I have to get back to my job now, but I’ll see you tomorrow evening, yeah?’</p><p>A waft of floral perfume from her movement hit Nate hard. ‘Yes. I’ll be here.’</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>Tinsley would never have admitted it so openly, but he was a romantic at heart, in the worst way possible. He would go to great lengths to make the person he loved happy. He didn’t share this romance with people he felt half-hearted about, but he had known from a young age that, upon meeting ‘the one’, the rest of his life would be dedicated to loving them and ensuring that they continued loving him in return.</p><p>Instead, he liked to say that his marriage was one of convenience. They met because they worked together. They were within the same department and had overlapping interests as a result. They lived near each other, close enough to walk between. She was small and short and attractive and he was big and tall and attractive. They were a ‘good-looking couple’ as their families would say. They dated because they found it easy; they shared similar tastes in food and drink and restaurants. On these dates they talked about their shared interests, eventually discussing their private ones. Even when they first slept together it was largely due to convenience; neither of them had anything on the next day, she was already on birth control, and he had a condom in his wallet.</p><p>A smooth transition from casual dating to official couple to husband and wife, he would say. The most generic ‘one thing led to another’. Met at thirty-five, married at thirty-seven. Mutual agreement to never bring forth a squealing little demon into the world. They turned up to events together and stood together for photographs and said goodnight and good morning and took turns cooking the other dinner.</p><p>His mother often warned him about true love. She told him it was to be taken in moderation. Too little of it led to vague fondness and inevitable disinterest. Too much of it led to obsession. Upon meeting Fen he had tipped the whole bottle down his throat, every last pill, and he swallowed them with relish.</p><p>He had never fallen for someone like he had fallen for Fen. His life had become one endless gruelling task to keep her content, and he faced this task with an eager martyrdom. If she wanted it, he would get it.</p><p>She loved him back, of course, in a way Nate didn’t entirely understand. But she did many things he didn’t understand. She wasn’t like the people around her. Not that she was better or worse than them, but she just didn’t fit in. She did some things that were unsettling, said things that were difficult to respond to. They both did.</p><p>So their love was something Nate didn’t fully grasp from the start. They did the typical relationship things; they fixed each other’s clothing and held hands in busy crowds and rolled each other’s sleeves up if they unravelled while washing the dishes and learned how to make each other’s tea just right (Fen had hers in the American way, with no milk and a spoonful of sugar, while Tinsley had his strong with a splash of milk). But they also did strange things sometimes, such as walks in the lashing rain and those wine and art classes where they got incredibly drunk before reeling home and falling into bed with no memory of anything they’d just done.</p><p>‘They’re strange,’ most people said, ‘but they’re harmless. Eccentric, isn’t that the word?’</p><p>Nate would not have said ‘eccentric’. He would have said ‘maladaptive’; a struggle or outright refusal to act appropriately in any given situation, a slightly milder take on the words ‘wild’ or ‘feral’. Whether or not they were harmless, he wouldn’t commit himself to an answer yet.</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>Nate eventually got the time to clean his new office, and he did so in a most passive-aggressive manner. The spiders had been evacuated from the bookshelves and their webs demolished, and he was now removing the busted-up furniture. Tinsley sat at his desk and tried not to let his eye start twitching too violently as Nate dragged the broken chairs out one by one, ensuring at least two of their four legs scraped the ground on the way. He watched Nate from over the rims of his glasses, his fingertips pressed to his temples, a pen hanging morosely from one hand.</p><p>‘I know you can carry them all at once,’ he said. ‘You might be relatively short but you’re by no means small.’</p><p>Nate stopped. ‘You're one of those who thinks being tall is part of your personality, hm?’</p><p>‘Funny. It's always short men who say that to me.’</p><p>‘I'm not short.’</p><p>‘Another thing short men always say.’</p><p>Tinsley met his gaze, brows raised as if to say, <em>anything else? </em>Nate struggled not to show his irritation, not to give him the satisfaction. After a few minutes of this stand-off he went back to his work as best as he could manage.</p><p>‘Do you have an electric lamp?’ he asked, standing in the doorway to Tinsley’s office.</p><p>‘No. I prefer oil. Electric hurts my eyes.’</p><p>‘Well it doesn’t hurt mine.’ He nodded towards the far corner. ‘What’s that?’</p><p>Tinsley untangled his hand from his hair, finally raising his head to follow Nate’s gaze. ‘Hm. It does seem to be an electric lamp.’</p><p>‘Can I have it?’</p><p>‘Knock yourself out.’</p><p>Nate crossed the room to fetch it. After dusting it off with his sleeve he held it to the light. It had a patterned glass shade with one or two panels missing, but it would do the job. He wrapped the wire around the stand before going back to his office.</p><p>‘Nathaniel.’</p><p>Nate stopped in the doorway, turning to give Tinsley an inquisitive look. Tinsley arched an unimpressed eyebrow. He never just <em>raised</em> an eyebrow. He had a particular talent for arching one in such a perfectly condescending manner Nate felt like a peasant, worryingly behind on his rent, pleading before a lord.</p><p>‘Close the door,’ said Tinsley.</p><p><em>Ah, </em>thought Nate. <em>Victory.</em></p><p>He leaned forwards, grabbed hold of the handle, and tried his best to shut the door behind him. It wouldn’t stay closed. The latch bolt was loose enough to be useless, and the dead bolt was missing altogether, so even if he’d had a key it wouldn’t have made any difference.</p><p>He left it as closed over as he could manage. Tinsley didn’t comment.</p><p>Twenty minutes later Nate was craving a coffee, and not one of the watery ones from the cafeteria. He had his coat in one hand and his headphones in the other, and he crossed Tinsley’s office casually, hoping that if he acted like he belonged there he wouldn’t be noticed.</p><p>He saw Tinsley sit back, tapping his pen against the paper he was annotating.</p><p>‘Where are you going?’</p><p>Nate paused in the doorway. After taking a breath deep enough to make his shoulders rise and fall, he turned to face him. ‘I was going to grab a coffee before class.’</p><p>‘Grab me one, will you.’</p><p>‘I was going to go to the café on the square.’</p><p>‘Even better.’ Tinsley got to his feet, taking his wallet from his front pocket. ‘I’ll have an Americano. Extra hot.’</p><p>‘Right.’</p><p>He circled the desk, handing over a twenty pound note. Nate didn’t reach out to take it, instead saying, ‘It’s fine. I’ll get them.’</p><p>‘Don’t be ridiculous. Take it.’</p><p>‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, shrugging on his coat. ‘Americano, extra hot. I’ll get it.’</p><p>Tinsley took his wrist, pressing the note into his hand and folding his fingers over it, like he was Nate’s grandfather and it was Christmas Day. ‘You’ve worked all morning. It’s my treat.’</p><p>Nate stared at him in silence, wary. ‘...<em>Your</em> treat?</p><p>‘Is that really so shocking?’</p><p>‘Yes. Definitely.’</p><p>Tinsley stopped by his desk, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. ‘I might be tough to work for, but I give credit where it’s due. I’d advise you keep that in mind.’</p><p>‘Will do.’</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>Nate cut across the grass, the collar of his coat pulled up against the icy breeze that kept threatening to slice him straight in half. Despite the grim grey sky and the dull overtone it gave the surrounding world, there was a spring to his step. As much as he hated to admit it, Tinsley’s words had made him feel irrationally upbeat. It was a reluctant cheeriness. The fact that Tinsley could even have such an impact on his state of mind annoyed him.</p><p>Americano, Tinsley had said. Extra hot. Nate didn’t need to wonder whether or not he wanted milk and sugar. He just knew from the look of him that he was a black coffee, straight whiskey sort of man. Nate wasn’t, however. When it came to his drinks, the sweeter the better.</p><p>The café was relatively quiet at this time of the morning, only a few students and one or two elderly folk. It was a nice place, lots of dark wood and atmospheric lighting from the range of mismatched lamps dotted around. There was no one at the counter but the barista, who was sitting hunched over a notebook, her pen gliding along the lined paper. She glanced up as Nate came to a halt in front of her. For a moment it was as if she had forgotten where she was. Nate recognized her from Tinsley’s class, <em>Reform and Rebirth.</em> Quiet, withdrawn, friendly but content with keeping to herself. She smiled at him, placing her pen and notebook aside.</p><p>‘Hi, what can I get you?’</p><p>‘One Americano and one flat white to go. And can you make the Americano extra hot?’</p><p>‘Sure.’</p><p>He passed the time studying the various muffins and cookies through the glass cabinet. Lemon, blueberry, white chocolate and raspberry. They looked delicious, in that sticky, sheeny way processed baked goods are. He saw some raspberry slices, one of his favourites, but resisted temptation.</p><p>‘They look good, don’t they?’</p><p>He straightened up, looking at a woman beside him. She was a little taller than him, wearing a trench coat and holding a black leather bag over her shoulder. She was pretty in a vulpine way; a pointed little nose, high cheekbones, red hair drawn back off her face. Nate didn’t respond to her comment but for a placating nod and smile.</p><p>‘Are you from around here?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you before.’</p><p>Nate tried to hide his displeasure at being dragged into a conversation that he knew was just a facade for something else. ‘Yeah. I just started working in the college.’</p><p>‘A professor?’</p><p>‘Getting there.’ He glanced at the barista, seeing that she had finished Tinsley’s drink and was steaming the milk for his. She moved slowly, dreamily, like she wasn’t quite awake. <em>Come on, hurry up.</em></p><p>‘I work in a bank in town,’ said the woman. ‘Not too far of a walk.’</p><p>‘That’s good.’</p><p>She blew air out through her mouth, but her disappointment was light-hearted. ‘Not interested, no?’</p><p>Nate reddened. ‘Sorry.’</p><p>‘It’s fine. I don’t usually try to hit on people in random cafés – I’m not a total creep – but you have to be one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.’</p><p>He smiled at this. A compliment was a compliment, after all. ‘Thank you.’</p><p>The barista placed the two paper cups down, putting their plastic lids on simultaneously. ‘There you go.’</p><p>Nate handed Tinsley’s cash over. While she counted the change he took two packets of sugar for his own coffee. He accepted her offer of a cardboard tray. </p><p>The woman smiled at him when he passed her by, and he smiled back out of politeness. She was one of those women where, had Nate been interested in women, he might have happily engaged with her. But then again, she had cold eyes. Cold and blue, surrounded by a darker ring. Not that he found all blue eyes cold; some were pale and gentle, reminiscent of the blue in a Monet painting.</p><p>Nate was a big proponent of eyes reflecting a person’s soul, so they tended to be what he looked at first, and they had quite a say in whether or not he pursued a romantic or platonic relationship with someone. Tinsley’s eyes were hazel, almost green in some lights, and with a generous amount of lashes around them. Fen’s eyes were a warm, sweet brown, like dark syrup or some other equally sweet substance.</p><p><em>When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes, </em>said Amedeo Modigliani. Perhaps he saw more of people’s souls than he thought he did when he painted their eyes as empty and dark regardless of the colour of their irises and the gleam of their pupils.</p><p>When Nate got back to the office he was surprised to find Tinsley standing at his desk. His poky office was still relatively empty, as he hadn’t had the chance to bring in the trinkets and bits and bobs he owned, but he had left a sketchbook on his desk that Tinsley was currently leafing through.</p><p>‘These aren’t half bad,’ said Tinsley, as if there was nothing strange about the fact he was rooting through Nate’s belongings. ‘In fact, they’re quite good.’</p><p>‘Oh. Thanks.’</p><p>Nate joined him at the desk, looking down at the drawings he was looking at. Some of them were of the scenery and architecture around the town. Others were of people in cafés and on public transport. Some were just little doodles of cups of coffee and leaves falling from trees that Nate found charming enough to focus on for five minutes.</p><p>One drawing in particular caught Tinsley’s eye. It was a small one of Fen down in the corner of a crowded page. It wasn’t particularly detailed, only drawn in swift lines, but it was unmistakably her. Nate had drawn her laughing with her hair was drifting about her face in an exaggerated manner, as if she were underwater or caught in a strong gust of wind. Her hand hovered near her face as if to catch her laughter. Tinsley brushed a thumb lightly across her smiling mouth, careful not to smudge the pencil.</p><p>‘You’ve drawn her hands too slim,’ he said, ‘and her wrists too delicate. She’s strong.’</p><p>‘I know. I just… wanted to capture a certain effect.’</p><p>He didn’t know that Nate had recently become acquainted with Fen. He assumed this sketch was a fleeting, distant crush, that perhaps Nate had spied her on campus one of the days, in the library, in the cafeteria, passed by her coming out of the building some late evening or early morning. Either way, because her sketch was among so many others, he didn’t think much of it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Renaissance Woman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Classes with Fen were a relief for Nate. His day could change from winter to summer just going from one class to the other; as he walked down the steps into the basement he could see branches sprouting from the walls, blooming with strong green leaves and heavy fruit and perfumed flowers, and the snow and ice Tinsley had deposited on him would melt off his coat and drip to the ground below.</p><p>She was kind to him, resting a hand on his arm to guide him into the classroom, laughing and joking with him. He went from being untouched for hours to being touched ten times a minute.</p><p>The modelling itself was relaxing, with only the scraping of brushes against canvas to accompany him. No one spoke a word. Their eyes rested on him and he liked it. It was a confirmation that he was real.</p><p>Fen took him by surprise one day, picking up a sketchbook and a stick of charcoal and joining the students in drawing him. Like a good model he stayed still, not allowing the surprise to affect him. He was suddenly a lot more conscious of what he looked like, but there wasn’t much he could do. Fen only sketched for a minute or two before putting her things aside and standing up to do a round of the class again. It was on this fateful day that Tinsley decided to come by. It was to be his first visit of many.</p><p>Nate saw him first, since everyone else had their backs to the door. He had a paper coffee cup in each hand. For a strange moment Tinsley stared at him, frozen in the doorway. His mouth opened a little as if he was about to speak. Nate fought the urge to cover his chest like a damsel in an old period piece.</p><p>Fen noticed the shift in Nate’s attitude. She looked over her shoulder, and upon spying Tinsley she hurried to him, quiet and light in her ballet pumps. They whispered for a minute or two so as not to disturb the students. His eyes kept moving to Nate before snapping back to Fen.</p><p>She led him over to where she had been sitting and began rustling through her bag for something. Tinsley looked anywhere but at Nate.</p><p>His eyes found the sketchbook Fen had been using. His face dropped, his brows drew together. Nate didn’t need to guess what he saw.</p><p>Tinsley placed his fingers lightly on the paper and turned it to face him. When he looked at Nate this time he looked directly into his eyes. Nate held his gaze as best as he could without moving his head.</p><p>Fen handed a set of keys to Tinsley, who took them without looking away from Nate. Then he turned Fen’s head towards him and kissed her softly on the mouth. It was a lingering kiss, and Nate immediately knew it was meant for him to see more than anything else. Tinsley gave him one last stern look before leaving.</p><p>Fen gave Nate a smile before sitting down and taking up her sketchbook and charcoal again. Nate thought she had been oblivious to the unspoken interaction that had just happened, but as he would learn, she never missed anything.</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>Fen had a liking for wispy floral dresses that reached down to her ankles. During the colder months she wore thick tights and a knit cardigan or jumper over them. There were usually splashes of drying paint on her hands and under her nails no matter how hard she scrubbed and scrubbed. Her perfumes were floral, her jewellery simple silver pieces, and she kept her hair chopped short to above her shoulders with the use of a large pair of scissors in the art room. Every few weeks the students would find her severed locks in the bin.</p><p>‘When birds get distressed they’re known to pull out their own feathers,’ she said to Nate one day as she snipped away quite haphazardly. He stared at her fingers, at how careless she was being. ‘What do you think that’s about? If my hair gave me flight I’d let it grow and grow and grow.’</p><p>Tinsley jokingly referred to her as his ‘Renaissance woman’. Maybe she was, a little bit. With enough time she could typically master anything she put her hands on. This included gardening, knitting, the occasional plumbing job. Whittling. Fixing clocks. Baking. Life wasn't meant to be lived softly, she thought. It was meant to be full of disasters and mistakes, of thumbs cut from whittling knives and recipes abandoned midway and clocks with arms that ticked in the wrong direction. Sometimes Nate thought she just enjoyed breaking things.</p><p>There was never any particular reason as to why she chose a certain hobby. If she wanted to try something she simply dove in headfirst, and there was very little anyone could do to stop her.</p><p>But if there was something she <em>didn’t</em> want to do then there was very little chance of anyone getting her to do it. Anyone but Tinsley. He would take hold of her hand as she walked past and press kisses all over it, and anything he asked she would eventually do. She didn’t want ructions between them. The stability of her life relied on Tinsley’s omnipresent clarity.</p><p>‘Married life is about being settled, isn’t it?’ she said to Nate over a cigarette and coffee in the staff room. ‘The excitement of a fling is only going to last for a little while. You don’t marry someone like that. You marry someone who’s settled from the get-go. Then nothing’s going to change and catch you by surprise.’</p><p>‘Were you ever a grand romantic?’</p><p>‘Nope. But my sister Lian was. And every time we meet up she has something new to complain about in her marriage. But me? Nada. And I do love Charlie. Of course I do. Some people seem to think I don’t. And the best thing is that he doesn’t want kids, and more importantly I don’t want kids. I mean, I don’t want to be ripped open and left peeing myself every ten steps for the rest of my life.’</p><p>Nate almost spluttered his coffee. He placed it down on the table, cleared his throat. ‘Oh. Yes, that doesn’t sound nice.’</p><p>‘My mom always asks when we’re going to have kids. Last Christmas she asked Charlie about his sperm count. You should’ve seen his face.’ She laughed loudly and struck the table, causing the few people around them to glance over. ‘He looked like she’d reached over and slapped him!’</p><p>Fen’s parents travelled from Beijing to America around 1945. Her mom was heavily pregnant with her, and her sister Lian was a toddler.</p><p>Fen couldn’t stand America growing up. The people were loud and the cities were loud and there were too many advertisements and flashing lights. It was a country with a constant air of loneliness and isolation over it despite its desperate attempts to appear otherwise. Her sister was in agreement.</p><p>As soon as they could they packed off to England, to the quaint little towns and villages that they saw in the movies. That’s where their paths diverged.</p><p>‘Lian met a doctor and married him and has two darling kids,’ said Fen, flicking the ash off her cigarette so sharply that she had to light it again. ‘My parents approve very much. My dad’s a doctor too. My mom adores children. And on top of that Doctor Tom is half-Chinese.’</p><p>Fen, on the other hand, pursued something her parents didn’t think worthy of her time (or to be more accurate, worthy of <em>their </em>time). She pursued the arts, relentlessly. She married an art history professor. She didn’t have kids and never would. They wanted her to do what Lian did, which was more or less replicate their lives. This wasn’t something she was interested in doing. Sometimes she thought she wasn’t interested in living a life at all. She wanted to observe the life around her. She wanted someone else to control her words and actions while still allowing her to rein over her consciousness. She wanted to be an omnipotent god. But she wasn’t. She was just another person going to work and filing taxes and cooking dinner and washing up night after night after night.</p><p>This yearning to be both dead and alive haunted her from when she was a child. She believed she had a prerequisite for sorrow. She was one of those people that Ray Bradbury talked about in <em>Dandelion Wine; </em>she bruised easier, tired faster, cried quicker, remembered longer, and got sadder younger than anyone else in the world.</p><p>She called Nate the saviour of her life drawing class. He was good model, better than she could have hoped for at such short notice. He could sit still for hours without doing anything but blinking and breathing. There was no shyness to him, no demurity. She didn’t have to coax him into the positions she needed. When she gave him his sporadic five-minute breaks he wouldn’t bother to even shrug on a shirt. He would simply take the tea she offered him with a warm smile and never failed to say thanks. He was a perfectly polite and respectable young man. </p><p>But Tinsley’s complaints and bitter words grew more and more frequent. His visits during the Tuesday and Thursday classes became much more common than they used to be. Usually he would bring Fen a coffee. He always made sure to kiss her on the cheek or the lips before he left. Sometimes he would stare at Nate with an unblinking anger, his jaw set.</p><p>‘In the nineteenth century models were seen as similar to prostitutes,’ he would say to Fen, just loud enough for Nate to overhear. ‘Selling their bodies for a bit of cash. I suppose there’s some sense in it.’</p><p>‘Only the women were seen as prostitutes,’ Nate later said to her, trying not to appear too irritated over Tinsley’s words. ‘The men weren’t. Not that it makes it any better but... he's wrong.’</p><p>‘I’m sorry that he said that to you. He can be… temperamental.’</p><p>‘It’s not the worst thing he’s said. Far from it.’</p><p>‘Really?’ She looked at him with surprise. ‘What else has he said?’</p><p>He shook his head. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’</p><p>She placed a hand on his arm. ‘Do you want me to talk to him for you?’</p><p>‘God, no. No, that’d make it worse. So much worse.’ He smiled his thanks. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse men than Tinsley in my life.’ He laughed, but he knew it sounded forced. ‘He doesn’t have a patch on the things my dad’s said to me, I’ll tell you that.’</p><p>Her hand moved up his arm to his shoulder, and she pressed a kiss there. He didn’t comment. He didn’t have any right to.</p><p>They had gotten comfortable with physical closeness over the past weeks, and Nate didn’t hesitate to touch her arm or whisper in her ear when they were alone. Once or twice he went so far as to brush her hair back from her neck and place his mouth close before smiling and saying something along the lines of, <em>Your perfume smells nice today. </em>She would smile back and say, <em>Thank you. Charlie got it for me. </em>Nate would let his smile turn wry then, but their interactions were playful and coy, and he enjoyed being alone with her. He enjoyed it more than he should have.</p><p>‘Charlie thinks you’re out to cause trouble,’ she said to him one evening while setting up for the class.</p><p>‘Do you think I am?’</p><p>‘I think you’re like the sea,’ she said, tucking his hair behind his ear. ‘The impression you leave depends on the shore you break upon.’</p><p><em>How poetic, </em>he wanted to say. <em>How grand. </em>But her words and touch had rendered him speechless, and she had moved on before he remembered he had words and touch of his own.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. A Paradoxical Statement [Goddamn Angel]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The staff room at Redwel was unlike any staff room Nate had seen before. It consisted of one large room, with a long wooden table and matching chairs, and smaller round tables around the walls, accompanied by Bergère armchairs and lamps with fringed shades. The ceiling was high and held two stained glass chandeliers decorated with floral motifs. Sashed windows lined the left wall, and along the right wall was the door into the cosy kitchen, with the two kettles and the fridge and the microwave oven.</p><p>There were often flowers left in vases, baby's-breath and lilies and twigs with cherry blossom petals still attached. They filled the space with their sickly sweet smell until they withered away and died. They left petals on the floor, on the tables, on plates and books and in cups of tea. The stench could be overwhelming, clogging your throat, making you want to set the flowers aflame to smoke out the sweetness.</p><p>The staff room was one of Nate’s favourite places to spend his time. He would haul all his books and tests and assignments down to the long table and help himself to the pot of tea Ms Harris routinely made every hour on the hour.</p><p>The tea cups were all bone china. Ms Harris swore they kept the tea hotter for longer. Whether or not this was true, Nate didn't care. He just liked the sound of the cups clinking off their matching saucers. He liked how fragile they were. He liked how he could hold this fragility in his hands without breaking it. <em>Look how gentle I am, </em>he thought. <em>Look how I'm not always destroying.</em></p><p>The professors were the sort of people he had always hoped he would meet one day; peculiar, unconventional, a little out-of-touch with the surrounding world. They had a tendency to observe intricate details so intensely that they missed the bigger picture. Their range in nationalities and ethnicities had been one of the main reasons Nate had applied for Redwel. Some of the larger, more well-known colleges weren't quite as inclusive, and his second name alone probably would have been enough to get his resumé tossed aside. He could have used his dad's English second name, but he downright refused to associate himself with him. He was a Moreno, not a Bennett. There was no more to it than that.</p><p>There was Ms Harris, the head librarian who wore her grey hair in a neat Gibson hairstyle and was fond of neutral toned cashmere jumpers paired with long skirts and patent leather heels, along with red cat-eye spectacles. Douglas and Schwartz, the French professors, the former a quiet Irishman, the latter a loud Canadian. Tola, a criminology professor hailing from Nigeria, and Oskar, the Finnish geographer. There was an American or two in the mix as well.</p><p>Out of all Nate’s coworkers – even Tinsley, even Fen – Banjo was a strong favourite.</p><p>His full name was Benjamin Dunne. He was the short portly professor of music and English with a balding head and an impressive mustachio that twitched like a rabbit when he was excited. He had small twinkly eyes and round spectacles that often slid down his little turned-up nose, causing him to talk to people with his head tilted backwards. His passions included quoting poetry and plays loudly, and baking. He had an awful habit of carrying around his overflowing folders and leaving loose sheets along the corridors like some estranged descendent of Hansel and Gretel, and it was always evident that they were his; despite his pudgy fingers he had an extraordinarily light touch, which led to missing letters and spaces when typing, making his notes quite singular.</p><p>Sometimes he would practice his violin in the staff room, muttering over his notebook, scribbling down potential notes for his newest composition. In the run-up to Halloween he was particularly prone to playing Camille Saint-Saëns' <em>Danse Macabre.</em></p><p>'When this piece was first released it was very unpopular,' he said to Nate over the dissonant descending notes. 'It made people anxious. The inspiration came from the legend that Death appears every Halloween at midnight and makes the dead dance to his fiddle. Morbid. But now it's considered one of Saint-Saëns' masterpieces. Everything is worthy of wonder, in its own time!'</p><p>He played in the staff room because it had good acoustics. Sounds echoed; every drop of milk into coffee, every petal falling to the floor, every whisper between colleagues.</p><p>It was because of this that Nate overheard them in the staff room a week or so later. Tinsley had, as usual, brought a book to read while he ate his lunch. What was unusual was the fact he had yet to open it. He was focused on his food in the way a moody child would be, his shoulders hunched as he tried to see how many pieces of penne he could fit on his fork at once. The metal prongs struck the plate repeatedly. Fen got to her feet to fetch a cup of water from the fountain.</p><p>‘What do you think of Nathaniel?’ he asked.</p><p>‘Nathaniel?’</p><p>He turned his head and arched an eyebrow at her. ‘Oh, you call him Nate, do you?’</p><p>‘Everyone calls him Nate,’ she replied flatly, turning the tap off. ‘You’re the only one who doesn’t.’</p><p>He tutted from behind his teeth, studying the penne stacked tightly on the prongs of his fork before abandoning said fork on the plate in front of him. She sat back down, returning to her own lunch. It was the same meal he was eating. Reheats from their dinner the night before, perhaps.</p><p>‘I don’t know what has you so weirdly jealous of him,’ she said. ‘And it’s completely not okay for you to turn up to my evening classes just to aggravate my model.’</p><p>‘I’m not jealous of him. He just annoys me.’</p><p>‘Everything annoys you.’</p><p>‘Well he, in particular, annoys me. Walking around like he owns the place.’</p><p>‘Are you just mad that you have competition?’</p><p>‘I don’t swan around like he does, Fen. I never have.’</p><p>Fen raised an eyebrow. Her husband might not have swanned around that campus, but he stalked around like Heathcliff on the moors, with the collar of his coat up and a permanent glower on his face.</p><p>‘I’m sure you swanned around a little bit when you were his age,’ she said.</p><p>She was purposely fuelling the conversation. Strangely enough, she seemed to be enjoying it. Tinsley rarely showed this much emotion, rarely spoke so many words consecutively, unless he was teaching a class.</p><p>‘Never!’ He pushed his chair back, the legs screeching against the wood floor. ‘And if I did, I was put back in my place quick-sharp. Maybe that’s what he needs.’</p><p>‘Charlie, leave him alone. You already torture him enough as it is.’</p><p>‘Oh did he come whining to you, did he?’ He got to his feet, taking his plate to the bin and scraping the lukewarm contents into it. He had barely eaten a scrap. Nate always wondered how he had grown so large when he hardly seemed to eat more than an average-sized person. ‘He turns on the puppy-dog eyes a bit too often for my liking.’</p><p>‘You’re just making things up now.’</p><p>He stalked into the kitchen. Nate heard tap turn on, filling the basin for washing up. It ran loudly. Tinsley returned to the doorway, one hand on his hip and the other propping himself up against the frame.</p><p>‘What do you guys talk about after the Tuesday and Thursday classes?’</p><p>Nate’s heart climbed into his throat. He knew exactly what Tinsley was trying to get at. Fen refused to even entertain it.</p><p>‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What do you and Banjo talk about when you guys hang around after class?’</p><p>‘I don’t know. Everything and nothing.’</p><p>‘Exactly. That’s what me and Nate talk about too.’</p><p>‘It’s different.’</p><p>‘How is it different?’</p><p>‘Because Banjo is ten years older than me, is in a steady marriage with three kids, and I’ve known him for a long time. Meanwhile, Nate is ten years your junior, has only been here for a month, and he looks like a goddamn angel.’</p><p>An angel? The comparison made Nate do a mental and physical double-take. Fen seemed just as surprised.</p><p>‘An angel?’ She laughed. ‘Careful, Charlie. You might make <em>me </em>jealous.’</p><p>He didn’t laugh. He turned back into the kitchen. Nate heard the tap shut off. <em>Clunk</em>. He backed away from the door and hurried away down the corridor.</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>When Fen was in high school in America she had a particular teacher, Mrs Martin. She was small and round and wore too much perfume, and had the type of wide legs that didn’t seem to suit the dainty feet attached to them. She was convinced that Fen didn’t know a word of English despite the fact that she had grown up in the same America Mrs Martin did and was more than fluent in the language.</p><p>Most of the time Fen sat and nodded and pretended that she was learning something new, just to appease her (it took her a while to realize she didn’t have to appease anyone in such situations). However, one time – perhaps the only time – Mrs Martin <em>did</em> teach her something new. She taught her the difference between jealousy and envy.</p><p>‘Jealousy,’ she said, in that drawn-out way people talk to toddlers and animals, ‘is more about emotions than anything else. To be jealous of someone means to be afraid that they will be better than you, or that they’ll take something of yours <em>because </em>they’re better than you. Envy means to want what someone else has.’</p><p>Fen was no fool. She knew Tinsley wasn’t jealous of Nate. Tinsley was envious of <em>her, </em>of the time she spent with Nate, of their conversations and their ease with each other. He wanted to be close to Nate too, but he didn’t know how to get close without stifling him, choking him. He had the habit of ruining the things he loved, often claiming he was cursed. Fen knew this was incorrect. She knew he had a lot more autonomy over his actions than he liked to think he did.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The National Gallery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The visit to the National Gallery came around. Nate stood at the door to the station and watched Tinsley kiss Fen goodbye before he got out of the car and closed the door. He was in a surprisingly good mood, it seemed. Perhaps they had had morning sex and that was why he was so chirpy. Nate frowned at his own thoughts, the invasiveness of the image.</p><p>Tinsley said hello to him and Nate mumbled a response while avoiding his eyes.</p><p>‘Good thing about teaching college students is they can make their own way to London,’ said Tinsley, slipping his ticket into the barrier and pushing through the turnstile. ‘So there’s no sheep-dogging a group of kids around all day.’</p><p>They sat across from each other on the train. Tinsley ordered a tea from the cart, Nate ordered a coffee. Only an elderly lady sat beside them. She unwrapped a little pink cake and offered some to Nate. He politely refused. She ate it with contentment and got off at the next stop.</p><p>‘Banjo once told me about this short Irish film,<em>’</em> said Tinsley, reading the newspaper with diligence. This marked the second time that morning he had willingly spoken to Nate. A rare amount. On some days Nate was lucky if he was acknowledged even once. ‘It’s about a woman on a train and she’s looking forward to the journey alone. Then an old blind asthmatic man gets on and starts to annoy her. She gets so annoyed that she tells him she saw a worm in his cake. He panics and starts to have an asthma attack. She hides his inhaler and gets off at her stop.’</p><p>Nate waited for him to continue. ‘Is that it? Does he die?’</p><p>‘Well, he doesn’t technically die.’ Tinsley quirked an eyebrow at him over the paper. ‘She kills him, doesn’t she?’</p><p>He went back to his paper with a deft flick of the flimsy paper. Nate toyed with the copy of <em>The Bell Jar </em>he had picked up the day before. The motion of the train made the paper cups tremble on the table between them.</p><p>‘Why do you read the newspaper so much?’ he asked. ‘It’s all doom and gloom.’</p><p>‘I like to keep tabs on the doom and gloom.’ Tinsley nodded towards the book in Nate’s hand. ‘And you can’t exactly criticize me for doom and gloom when you’re reading that. Plath is heavy. She killed herself, did you know that? Gassed herself in an oven. So many great writers have so much misery. Woolf drowned herself. Hemingway shot himself. And artists too. Van Gogh, Rothko, Mayer. What is it about the creative mind, hm?’</p><p>Nate looked at him. ‘Artists aren’t the only people who kill themselves.’</p><p>‘That’s true.’</p><p>‘And it shouldn’t be glorified as something that goes hand in hand with creativity. I mean, Van Gogh painted <em>Starry Night </em>and <em>Irises </em>while in recovery. Art and suffering aren’t co-dependent. I’m tired of the view that it is. And it’s always people who aren’t suffering that glorify the pain of artists.’</p><p>‘Mm. You’re right.’</p><p>‘It’s like you said a while ago, with the Renaissance and subject matter; even the most unpleasant and vulgar scenes were just seen as another aesthetic challenge, just something to try and make beautiful. Like <em>The Rape of Prosperina.’</em></p><p>‘A horrible scene, yes, but it doesn’t actually refer to rape in the sense we use it nowadays,’ said Tinsley, having shifted his focus from his newspaper to Nate. ‘It’s the traditional translation of the Latin <em>raptus, </em>which means “seized” or “carried off”. But you’re still right.’</p><p>‘And the worst part of it was the reviews,’ continued Nate. ‘Didn’t Bernini’s own son call it “an amazing contrast of tenderness and cruelty”? They can’t coexist. It was violence.’</p><p>‘They can coexist.’</p><p>Tinsley said this with such quiet certainty Nate was unable to respond for a moment. ‘But they’re complete opposites. They can’t coexist simultaneously.’</p><p>Tinsley set his newspaper aside before folding his arms on the table. The sunlight turned the flyaway strands of his hair into gold and made his eyes a curious green. ‘What about “cruel to be kind”?’</p><p>‘Cruel is the action, kind is the outcome. They’re not simultaneous.’</p><p>‘But in that sense, cruelty is an act of tenderness. It results in a good outcome for the receiver.’</p><p>Nate held his cup of coffee between the fingertips of each hand, shifting it in small circles. ‘At a stretch.’</p><p>‘And what about when someone takes your hand-’ He took Nate’s hand in both of his, giving it a squeeze. ‘-and says “it’s for the best”. Is it ever for the best? No. It’s a tender form of cruelty.’ He released Nate’s hand, letting it drop back to the table where it lay limp. ‘What age are you, Nate?’</p><p>Nate swallowed, tucking his hand away from sight. ‘Twenty-eight.’</p><p>Tinsley sat back out of the sunlight, taking his tea with him. ‘Hm. Sometimes you surprise me with your naivety.’</p><p>Nate frowned. ‘Just because I have different opinions than you doesn’t mean I’m naïve.’</p><p>Tinsley didn’t reply. Nate had the feeling he had somehow just strengthened his point. They watched each other, both wondering whether this was a topic either of them wanted to delve into on an early Friday morning.</p><p>Nate knew there was no point in debating Tinsley on anything. He was set in his ways. He had lived his life the way he wanted to; steady, his focus unwavering, his devotions incorruptible. He was one of Baudelaire’s perfect metaphysical dandies; his interests lay in beauty, in satisfying his passions and curiosities, in elevating aesthetics to a religion within his life. Nothing else truly mattered to him.</p><p>Nate went back to Plath, his elbows set on the table and his wrist holding the pages open.</p><p>
  <em>“The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the coloured arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>. . .</strong>
</p><p>The students were given freedom to roam the Gallery, with the sole order to pick a piece of art to present to the class at the end of term. Tinsley didn’t go inside with the students. Instead he turned around and went back outside. Nate hesitated before following.</p><p>‘Where are you going?’ he asked, going down the steps after him.</p><p>Tinsley half-turned to look back, hands in the pockets of his coat. ‘The National Gallery is impressive, but even the most impressive things can get boring when you’ve been seeing them every year since you were twenty-six.’ He continued walking and Nate fell into step beside him. They were heading towards Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, and Trafalgar Square was bustling beside them. ‘Anyway, I have my opinions on the Gallery and the… method of acquisition of the art within its walls. But I don’t want to dampen your visit. You go back and have a look around.’</p><p>‘I’ve been before. A lot.’</p><p>Tinsley looked down at him. ‘You’re not lying just to spend time with me, are you?’</p><p>Nate ducked his head, hiding his flush. ‘What? No.’ He scoffed then. ‘And you call me narcissistic.’</p><p>‘Right, right, apologies. Well I was just going to have a coffee somewhere. Maybe engage in some half-hearted retrospection. Care to join me?’</p><p>Nate checked his watch. ‘Hm, I suppose I can fit some retrospection into my busy schedule.’</p><p>They found a café and sat outside despite the chill. Tinsley offered Nate a cigarette and he accepted it, watching the pigeons continue their domination of the Square, landing on people’s arms and shoulders and heads, picking their lunches from their very hands to scrap over them on the stones. There was a cat nearby, watching the pigeons too, licking its lips. Tinsley sat back and crossed his legs, balancing his cup and saucer on his knee.</p><p>‘Pigeons used to nest on the windowsill of my office,’ he said. ‘These two speckled ones. They used to drive me mad with their flapping and cooing.’</p><p>‘My mum always called them sky rats.’</p><p>‘I would’ve agreed. But Fen changed my stance. This was before we started dating. I said how I wanted to get rid of the pigeons on my sill, and she said not to. When I asked her why, she said there’s nothing that actually supports that idea that pigeons are dirty and diseased. “Pigeons and humans have lived in close proximity since forever,” she said, “and the human population isn’t exactly riddled with pigeon disease, is it?” I couldn’t fault her argument.’ He shrugged. ‘She told me that pigeons only stay so close to humans because we bred them to be like so. We domesticated them thousands of years ago and their rejection is a pretty recent thing. They still thrive in urban environments because they haven’t evolved to live in the wild. In fact, the only reason they’re considered vermin is because they dare to live in the same space as humans do. Just likes foxes and squirrels and crows. They occupy our space and, even worse, they don’t give us anything we can make use of. That’s the definition of vermin, really; daring to live where you’re not useful.’</p><p>Nate looked at a pigeon nearby that was pecking at a cigarette butt on the ground. ‘Well. You learn something new every day.’</p><p>‘You certainly do with Fen. She’s got a mind like a sponge.’</p><p>He suddenly got out of his seat, crouching down and <em>pss-pss-pss-</em>ing at the cat lingering near the café’s door. He extended a hand, rubbing his fingers together. Nate watched in silence. Other people were watching too, staring apathetically as they paced by, but Tinsley shared the same talent as Fen when it came to ignoring what other people thought of him. Nate often wondered if they purposely ignored other people’s thoughts or if they were genuinely unaware that other people had minds and beliefs of their own at all.</p><p>The cat, a long-haired calico, slowly came over. It rubbed itself around Tinsley’s legs. He smiled, giving it a gentle scratch around the ears.</p><p>‘I should get another cat,’ he said. ‘An office cat. Are you allergic, Nate?’</p><p>‘I don’t think so.’</p><p>Tinsley was holding its little head in his hands, brushing his thumbs along its furry cheeks. ‘You prefer dogs, don’t you?’</p><p>‘A little. I find cats too unpredictable.’</p><p>‘I find dogs too dependent. Their loyalty is suffocating.’</p><p>This should’ve been a glaring red flag in itself, but Nate was too busy watching Tinsley slip a finger under the cat’s collar and itch it where it needed it most. Even from the table Nate could hear it purr.</p><p>Tinsley carried it back to the table and it sat on his lap, seemingly content.</p><p>They each had another coffee, and their conversation strayed back to more familiar territory; art.</p><p>‘A lot of men in Renaissance and Baroque art have the same features,’ Tinsley was saying, ‘They have that softly masculine face. Strong jaw, thick dark eyebrows, but smooth clear skin and full lips. Dark eyes, so dark the iris is entirely indistinguishable from the pupil, yet bright nonetheless. To you, it must be like looking in a mirror.’</p><p>He went on to point out all the dark-haired figures Nate looked like; when they were angry, with their noses wrinkled and lips curling; when they were sad, with their eyes large and gazing upon the heavens, tears brimming along their lash line; when they were angels with their beautiful faces to the light; and when they were demons with their teeth bared and blood on their bodies.</p><p>He told Nate he saw him in Burrini’s <em>Diana and Endymion,</em> asleep so peacefully, poised so softly; in Delaroche’s <em>Saint Sebastian, </em>sweet and serene despite his suffering, his face that of someone unblameable; at the bottom of Ricci’s <em>The Fall of the Rebel Angels, </em>with his fist drawn back to strike even as he plummeted to his fate.</p><p>‘You see me a lot,’ said Nate.</p><p>Tinsley was quiet for a moment before replying with the vagueness he could call to hand at the drop of a hat. ‘Sometimes you know a ghost when you meet one.’</p><p>Nate didn’t understand what he meant, but over time it became clear; when you don’t miss a person but you still remember them every day, what else are they doing but haunting you?</p><p>They paid for their coffees and went back towards the Gallery. The cat padded along behind them for a part of the short journey before growing bored and chasing a few pigeons around the benches. There was a small exclamation from a few people as the cat managed to snag one of the birds, dragging it out of its flight, biting into its breast. Nate pulled a face. Tinsley raised his eyebrows and laughed before continuing on.</p><p>Nate looked back over his shoulder, watching the cat drag the limp little body under a bench. The other pigeons carried on about their days. He wondered if they even knew what death was, if they could comprehend its infiniteness. He wondered if he knew any better than they did.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Scrupulosity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The mirror in Nate’s bathroom was grimy. He felt that, because of the grime and the dirt, it showed a truer reflection of himself than a clean mirror would have.</p><p>Around his neck there was a gold cross on a chain. It had been his mother’s. He only took it off when he showered. The chain was delicate, the cross was heavy. It was real gold. He knew this because he had developed a bad habit of placing it in his mouth and sucking on it when he felt anxious or afraid, and nothing peeled off or faded away. It would taste of metal at first, and then of warmth. Just like blood and sunlight.</p><p>His father used to make them pray in a strange way, with their heads almost touching the ground and their hands flat either side, the way Nate occasionally saw the nuns in the nearby convent school do it. His mother’s necklace would always slip out of her shirt collar and dangle freely. She didn’t dare raise a hand from the floor to tuck it away again. Prayer time was for silence and stillness.</p><p>Nate was never good at it. No child was ever good at praying, but he didn’t know that at the time, because he was the only child he knew, his mother and father the only adults.</p><p>‘Prayer will bring us salvation,’ his father said. ‘And you need salvation, Nathaniel. You need it more than any of us. We are all born in sin but you were born a sinner.’</p><p>Tinsley laughed when Nate told him of this. ‘He sounds right dolly. Did he ever bother getting help? I think there's a condition for what he has. Some sub-category of OCD.’</p><p>Nate kept his head ducked, picking a thread from the end of his red tie. 'No. He never got help.'</p><p>Tinsley leaned forwards, folding his arms on the desk. ‘Come on. Surely you didn’t believe him.’</p><p>‘I didn’t. But at the same time, what if he was right? About everything?’</p><p>‘You didn’t inherit his scrupulosity, did you? I’d be incredibly disappointed if you did. Or are you more affected by the guilt that comes with Catholicism?’</p><p>‘The guilt, sure. And the bargaining.'</p><p>'Bargaining?'</p><p>'Yes. Bargaining.’ Nate hesitated, looking aside. He picked and picked at his tie, unravelling it thread by thread. ‘I often tell myself that if I can make something out of my life, if I can go places and do good things, then I couldn’t possibly have been as bad as he always said I was. Because even though I’m not religious anymore, and I don’t pray or attend mass or anything, I still sometimes worry. Just in case it’s all true. Just in case I’m not being good enough.’</p><p>Tinsley listened to all this with interest, his chin in his hand, his fingers resting across his mouth. Then he sat back.</p><p>‘Well I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but art was not the field to go into if you wanted to avoid Catholic guilt,' he said. 'Art was – and still is – about the aesthetics of the painting, about creating enough beauty to make people stop and look at it, and remember it. Not <em>understand</em> it. Understanding it is just a rare bonus. Half the greatest paintings in the world aren't understandable – the Mona Lisa, the Girl with a Pearl Earring, Nighthawks, The Persistence of Memory, I could go on – and it's their mystery that adds to their greatness. People have struggled to find some sense in them, some symbolism, and because of this the paintings have grown even more popular, but this is the God-honest truth, Nathaniel; they don’t mean anything. They are focused on nothing more than beauty to the eye and interest to the soul. This was no different during the eras of the Renaissance and the Baroque. For example, if the subject was really Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom, then why draw him nude? Why draw any saintly figures nude? Why draw God Himself nude? It was all for beauty. And isn’t that some sort of deadly sin?’</p><p>Nate chewed on his lip, watching Tinsley’s face. ‘In a way. Maybe vanity.’</p><p>‘The abundance of nudity was also a way for the artist to showcase their skills, their knowledge. What deadly sin is that? Pride? And worst of all – and let’s not lie to each other here – paintings of half-nude figures in intricate positions inspire lust, no matter how religious the subject matter.’ Tinsley smiled at him, a dry smile. ‘It could be argued that art is a sin in and of itself.’</p><p>These words didn’t bring Nate much comfort, but then again, Tinsley’s goal wasn't to be comforting. His goal was to hear his own voice and marvel at his own words.</p><p>‘Is that why you chose to specialize in it?’ asked Nate.</p><p>‘Ha! Are you trying to say I’m a sinner?’</p><p>Nate shrugged, spread his hands, as if to say, <em>Well what else could you be implying?</em></p><p>‘I’m no sinner, Nathaniel. Because I don’t believe in sin.’</p><p>‘A person can still drown even if they don’t believe in water.’</p><p>Tinsley gave him a flat look, getting to his feet. ‘You can’t compare a concept to something that physically exists. Prove sin to me, have me see it and feel it, and then I might believe you.’</p><p>'So you don't believe in anything conceptual at all?' Nate twisted in his chair to follow Tinsley’s path towards the coat stand. 'You don't believe in- in time, for example?'</p><p>Tinsley shrugged his coat on, a wry look in his eyes. 'Nate. I would gladly not believe in time if it wasn't forced upon me every waking moment of every day.'</p><p>Nate watched him doing his coat buttons up. 'Where are you going?'</p><p>'To get a coffee. Come with me.'</p><p>Nate had to resist the urge to scramble from his chair like a dog to a whistle.</p><p>They followed the path through campus, the one that led out the smaller side tunnel and into the beginnings of the town. A small group of mountains were visible from the end of this tunnel. There was a heavy mist covering their tips, swallowing them metre by metre.</p><p>‘The rain’s coming in,’ said Tinsley.</p><p>‘I know,’ replied Nate.</p><p>It fell in sheets, spraying off the rooftops so heavily it seemed as if there was steam rising off them. Blackbirds scurried under hedges and crows flapped into trees to huddle close to the trunks. They did such things in order to not waste the foraging time. Humans were surprisingly similar; hurrying into shops, hoping to have enough loose change in their pockets to buy a cheap umbrella so they can continue going about their days. Grabbing lunch, nipping to the chemist, running to the grocery shop to pick up something for dinner. They, like their avian counterparts, could not waste the foraging time.</p><p>Tinsley bought the coffees. He didn't ask or offer. A kind gesture, perhaps, or a way of exuding control over the situation. It was difficult to tell.</p><p>Nate often wondered if it something he did or said that made Tinsley like or dislike him on any given day. Perhaps it was the way he walked into the office in the morning, or what music could be heard playing from his headphones. The most likely answer was that there was no reason for Tinsley’s attitude swings. All Nate knew for certain was that on the days Tinsley disliked him he could spiral wildly into a twenty-four hour depression, and on the days Tinsley liked him he was certain he could conquer the world.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>